Mike Rowe on the cost of Higher Education

[psijac]

[youtube][/youtube]

[jmra]

Only watched the first few minutes of the video but could tell where it was going. The only people I see around here doing "dirty jobs" are Mexican immagrants. Those who should be doing them appear to believe they are owed something better.

I see kids everyday that couldn't give a rip about doing their school work talking about what college they're going to attend. Few of them will make it past the first year. Those who do manage to scrape by will struggle keeping a job due to their poor work ethic.

There was a time that these kids would have had other options available to them in school. Things which would interest them such as mechanics shop, or wood shop, or even basic welding shops. But we've done away with all of that because every child should go to college. We have done a great disservice to both our kids and our country. At some point we need to wake up and smell the coffee.

[psijac]

Only watched the first few minutes of the video but could tell where it was going. The only people I see around here doing "dirty jobs" are Mexican immagrants. Those who should be doing them appear to believe they are owed something better.

I see kids everyday that couldn't give a rip about doing their school work talking about what college they're going to attend. Few of them will make it past the first year. Those who do manage to scrape by will struggle keeping a job due to their poor work ethic.

There was a time that these kids would have had other options available to them in school. Things which would interest them such as mechanics shop, or wood shop, or even basic welding shops. But we've done away with all of that because every child should go to college. We have done a great disservice to both our kids and our country. At some point we need to wake up and smell the coffee.

It might be worth your time to watch the whole thjng. At one point he calls welding the industry art and references who like the arts program vocational training in school has also disappeared.

And his Story about the guidance consoler is priceless

[MadMonkey]

I've always liked Mike, and I'm fairly certain that he keeps his political beliefs quiet because he's conservative and trying to keep as many openings as he can to speak about things like this.

Every time I listen to him I keep thinking about learning some kind of skill, but I don't know what I'd be good at

[sunny beach]

Only watched the first few minutes of the video but could tell where it was going. The only people I see around here doing "dirty jobs" are Mexican immagrants. Those who should be doing them appear to believe they are owed something better.

I see kids everyday that couldn't give a rip about doing their school work talking about what college they're going to attend. Few of them will make it past the first year. Those who do manage to scrape by will struggle keeping a job due to their poor work ethic.

There was a time that these kids would have had other options available to them in school. Things which would interest them such as mechanics shop, or wood shop, or even basic welding shops. But we've done away with all of that because every child should go to college. We have done a great disservice to both our kids and our country. At some point we need to wake up and smell the coffee.

If they don't have a good work ethic they're not going to do more than scrape by in a skilled trade either. At least in Texas they won't. Maybe it's different in states where the trade unions have a monopoly and protect the lazy.

However, I agree we need to wake up and smell the coffee. The only solution is to stop the handouts. People will get off their butts and work or they won't. Either way they will get what they deserve.

[jmra]

Only watched the first few minutes of the video but could tell where it was going. The only people I see around here doing "dirty jobs" are Mexican immagrants. Those who should be doing them appear to believe they are owed something better.

I see kids everyday that couldn't give a rip about doing their school work talking about what college they're going to attend. Few of them will make it past the first year. Those who do manage to scrape by will struggle keeping a job due to their poor work ethic.

There was a time that these kids would have had other options available to them in school. Things which would interest them such as mechanics shop, or wood shop, or even basic welding shops. But we've done away with all of that because every child should go to college. We have done a great disservice to both our kids and our country. At some point we need to wake up and smell the coffee.

If they don't have a good work ethic they're not going to do more than scrape by in a skilled trade either. At least in Texas they won't. Maybe it's different in states where the trade unions have a monopoly and protect the lazy.

However, I agree we need to wake up and smell the coffee. The only solution is to stop the handouts. People will get off their butts and work or they won't. Either way they will get what they deserve.

I think many of them developed the poor work ethic because they were forced down a path they had no interest in. Given an opportunity to develop skills in an area of interest might well have given them a desire and a passion.

[MechAg94]

There is a bit of truth to that in that most kids have little idea what trades or jobs exist except in a very general way. That doesn't even count opportunities to be self employed. I know I didn't and that was years ago. I have met other people who have said the same thing and these are people who graduated in the 80's and 90's.

I am not really sure you can lay all that on schools. Parents need to find ways to expose their kids to hobbies and business/industry in general. I am not sure schools can really do a good job of that if they tried. These days teachers went to college and became teachers. What job information do they really have? Teachers who retired from other careers are rare from what I hear.

[MotherBear]

I am not really sure you can lay all that on schools. Parents need to find ways to expose their kids to hobbies and business/industry in general. I am not sure schools can really do a good job of that if they tried. These days teachers went to college and became teachers. What job information do they really have? Teachers who retired from other careers are rare from what I hear.

It's hard for parents to do that with the limited time they get with their kids by the time the kids are home from school and homework is done. Because we homeschool, as we go about daily life I'm able to point out to my kids the different work going on around them. We talk about what parts of the job might be fun or interesting or difficult. I also try to emphasize that any honest work done well is worthy of respect, and I point out that the people working are working to provide for themselves and their families just like their daddy does.

I don't want to say that parents shouldn't be doing this, but if the schools are going to keep the kids for so much of the day maybe they should be making more of an effort to expose them to the real world. How, I don't know, but when I spent a few years in public school I remember thinking how surreal it was, all of us in that building with no one but teachers. And I was the only one I ever saw talking to the janitors, maintenance guys, or cafeteria workers.

[WildBill]

Teachers who retired from other careers are rare from what I hear.

It's really funny that you should say that. Some of the best teachers I had in college were engineers and scientists who were laid off from NASA and Lockheed during federal budget cuts. They had the education and the practical experience so they could relate the course work to the real world. When the defense contracts returned, I don't think any of them left teaching to go back into industry.

[n5wd]

There is a bit of truth to that in that most kids have little idea what trades or jobs exist except in a very general way. That doesn't even count opportunities to be self employed. I know I didn't and that was years ago. I have met other people who have said the same thing and these are people who graduated in the 80's and 90's.

I am not really sure you can lay all that on schools. Parents need to find ways to expose their kids to hobbies and business/industry in general. I am not sure schools can really do a good job of that if they tried. These days teachers went to college and became teachers. What job information do they really have? Teachers who retired from other careers are rare from what I hear.

There are a lot of teachers who have had previous business and industry experience - in fact, in Texas, it's a requirement for a teacher to have that experience in order to teach Career and Technology (CATE) classes in the state. In our high school, almost all of the CATE teachers have 10 or more years of experience prior to beginning their teaching experience - for example, I had been a paramedic for 22 years when I began teaching Health Science Technology courses. We're the largest department in the school - yeah, we're outnumbered by the Social Studies and Language Arts teachers, but not by a whole lot. So, yes - there are a lot of teachers in high school that have real-life work experience in their field.

The problem is that schools must pick and choose what programs they offer. We (our department) looked in to adding an auto-mechanics / body shop lab to the school. Since we didn't have one now, either a retrofit of the building would have to occur or, more likely, a new building would be constructed. To add two lifts, classrooms, various lab rooms, body and paint shop to a new building would have run about 3 million dollars in capital outlay, plus a large expense annually for supplies and maintenance. Our district didn't have the numbers of parents wanting the program to justify putting out that kind of money, so we don't have an auto shop in our district.

What you WILL find districts doing today are specializing an industry area at Special Interests schools/academies. We've got five of those in our district - our school houses the STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) academy and the Media Arts (video and digital graphics) programs, another high school has the Medical (EMT, Nursing Assistant & Pharmacology Technology) program and the Culinary Arts program. A third much smaller high school has the Cosmetology academy.

Smart districts survey the parents and industry to find out what everyone thinks is going to be needed in the near future and programs for that. But, I don't know of any district that can have everything there possibly could be run. A lot of that slack is taken up by the junior colleges in the areas that run programs in conjunction with industry. We used to run an aircraft mechanic/A&P program with our local junior college that way until interest dropped so much we dropped the program.

Oh, forgot to mention - one of our popular classes in the CATE program is the entrepreneurship class - letting folks get some info/experience on running their own businesses. It's not a full-blow four year program, but again, the numbers of kids wanting the classes don't justify that. But we're keeping at least two sections of classes running again this year.

Bottom line - if your school district isn't doing something similar, it's up to the people paying taxes in the district and the parents of the district to let them know what's needed.

[nightmare]

Bottom line - if your school district isn't doing something similar, it's up to the people paying taxes in the district and the parents of the district to let them know what's needed.

That. Or young people with goals and drive can sign up for private sector training. Even if it costs $5k it's probably a better investment in their future than one semester getting drunk on 6th Street.